Alan Moore
'' ]] art by Melinda Gebbie]] ]] : Century 1910]] from Doctor Who Monthly's Black Legacy. Art by David Lloyd]] Business as Usual, art by David Lloyd]] ]] '']] '']] Background Alan Moore (born 18th November 1953) is a comics writer and occultist from Northampton, who has been described on occasion as the most significant comics writer in history and one of the most important British writers of the last fifty years. Among the best-selling and critically acclaimed series he is responsible for are ''Watchmen (with Dave Gibbons), V for Vendetta (with David Lloyd), From Hell (with Eddie Campbell), Marvelman (with Garry Leach), the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (with Kevin O'Neill) and the reinvention of DC's Swamp Thing as well as the controversial Lost Girls (co-created with Melinda Gebbie, whom he later married). Early career He began his career working in fanzines in the 1970s (the earliest may have been Cyclops #3 in 1970) before moving on to work for Marvel UK and IPC. His earliest known published work for Marvel UK was in the Frantic Winter Special in 1979, while he worked extensively for 2000 AD in the early 1980s, where he began working on Tharg's Future Shocks and Tharg's Time Twisters before creating characters such as Abelard Snazz, Skizz (1983), D.R. & Quinch (1983) and Halo Jones (1984). (He also wrote a Rogue Trooper strip, an ABC Warriors strip and a few Ro-Busters strips.) For Marvel UK around the same time he wrote several backup strips in The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Monthly (1981-1982) and in Doctor Who Monthly (1980-1981), the Daredevil spoof Dourdevil (1983), numerous text stories featuring Night Raven and a lengthy Captain Britain epic (1982-1984) with Alan Davis, amongst other things. Moore was also one of the creators involved in the now legendary though sadly short-lived Warrior magazine (for which he wrote Marvelman, The Bojeffries Saga and V for Vendetta between 1982 and 1984). He also wrote episodes of series' such as The Collector (for New Eagle) and Monster (for Scream!) and text stories in the 1985 Superman Annual for London Editions Magazines. Early American work Moore really rose to prominence after breaking into the American market with his work for DC on Swamp Thing (1984-1987), and later Watchmen (1986) and such well-remembered stories as Batman:The Killing Joke (1988) and the Superman stories For the Man Who has Everything (1985) and Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (1986), as well as a surprising number of rather less well remembered stories in titles such as Detective Comics, Green Lantern and The Omega Men. His often thought-provoking (and award winning) work gave comics a degree of respectability they had never previously attained in either Britain or the US, and helped lead a mass influx of British talent that revolutionised the US comics industry at a time when it was seriously ailing. More recent career Moore left mainstream comics for a time in the late eighties to create his own publishing company, Mad Love (with his then wife, Phyllis, and their mutual lover Deborah Delano) and initiate projects such as AARGH and Big Numbers, before returning to create series such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999-) and Promethea for America's Best Comics and Neonomicon for Avatar Press. Several of his works, including From Hell ''(a breathtakingly well-researched retelling of the story of Jack the Ripper) have been turned into movies. However, Moore (a sometimes controversial figure who has at one time or another had disagreements with virtually every company he has ever worked for and almost everyone he has ever worked ''with) has generally been unsupportive of these projects and refuses to be credited on them (the movie version of V for Vendetta, for instance, carries the credit "Based on the graphic novel by David Lloyd" because Lloyd was the artist). He has also asked that he not be credited on Marvel's reprints of his Marvelman/Miracleman series, resulting in their Miracleman title being, somewhat bizarrely, credited as "Written by: the original author." Notes * Moore is the father of comics writer Leah Moore. * He has written a million-word novel about Northampton called Jerusalem. * Several of Moore's early works were created under pseudonyms, the most common being 'Curt Vile' and 'Jill de Ray', though he also used 'Translucia Baboon'. * In one of Tharg's Future Shocks, Sunburn from 2000 AD prog 325, Moore created a character named Rorschach Skubbs, who murdered his wife. Later, he would reuse the name in a more famous work, Watchmen. The name Rorschach, that is. Not Skubbs. I don't think he's ever reused Skubbs. Can't think why. * Moore has proclaimed himself to be a devotee of the snake god Glycon, who may or may not have been created as a hoax in the 2nd century A.D, as Moore himself is happy to concede. Characters and strips created by Alan Moore * AARGH * Abelard Snazz * Albion (Limited Series) * Anthrax Ghoulshadow * Axel Pressbutton * Big Numbers * Brinna * Business as Usual * Captain Airstrip One * Captain UK * Chrysoprasia * Cobweb * Cornelius Cardew * D.R. & Quinch * Dourdevil * Ernest Errol Quinch * Evey Hammond * Fascination * From Hell * Halo Jones * Heartbreak Hotel * Kaptain Briton * Lawrence Taylor * League of Extraordinary Gentlemen * Legion * Lost Girls * Ludy * Meggan * Miracleman (Marvel UK) * Miraclewoman * Monster * Mysta Mystralis * Pulger * Qys * Rodice * Rorschach Skubbs * Roxanne O'Rourke * Skizz * Skizz (Interpreter Zhcchz) * Special Executive * The Bojeffries Saga * The Fury * The Glyph * Thorkwung * Tilotny * Toby * Toy Molto * V for Vendetta * Vixen * Waldo 'D.R.' Dobbs * Wardog * Warpsmiths * Wutzek * Young Nastyman (Terrance Rebbeck) * Zeitgeist Category:Comics Writers Category:Alan Moore/Writer Category:Alan Moore/Creator